(Spanish original: ¿Qué pruebas me convencerían de que Dios existe?)
After years of answering emails and moderating comments on this site and on our Facebook page, one tends to see that believers’ arguments repeat themselves quite often. Fallacies, appeals to faith, elaborate philosophical constructs, quotes from the founders of various religions, bad science… the arguments are numerous and exhausting. And that’s when they don’t machine-gun us with the Gish gallop, demand definitions in the best style of “sea lions”(see Why sealioning is bad) or accuse us of being atheists because we’re possessed by demons or because we want to sin. Our section “Letters from the Middle Ages” is full of these types of accusations and bad arguments.
In another article we shared what Richard Dawkins famously wrote to his daughter regarding this matter. Other atheists have their own responses. At some point, Matt Dillahunty started responding that he didn’t know what evidence would specifically convince him that the God of the Bible exists, but that, given that this god is omniscient and omnipotent, he should know what evidence would convince him and should be able to present it, and that if he didn’t, it’s because either he doesn’t have those attributes and can’t, or because he’s capricious and doesn’t want to. Of course, the possibility that he doesn’t exist is the null hypothesis.
In general I tend to agree with him, but years of discussions have given me some ideas about what characteristics of such evidence would convince me. So, more than anything to have them compiled in an easy-to-find place, and to use them as references in my current discussions with believers, I begin here to describe what type of evidence we’re talking about.
Before starting
Does the god you believe in interact with the real world? This is important because discussing unverifiable constructs bores me. I’m not a philosopher, and I tend to be practical. Without delving into philosophy(which is not my favorite discipline), we could say that in practice I use methodological naturalism. I don’t go beyond that, so those who want to accuse me of scientism can turn back where they came from; at most, I use the moderate version of it. That is: If your god does not interact with the real world, I’ll consider it equivalent to Sagan’s dragon in the garage, and unworthy of further discussion. I’ll continue thinking of that god as a rather unpleasant fictional character.
Can we agree that we live in a real world and that you and I share that reality? It’s amazing how many people want to validate their god with arguments that basically boil down to “we live in the Matrix.” No, I’m not interested in that worldview. If you’re a solipsist, I can’t help or discuss with you. Walk away.
Characteristics your evidence should have
It exists in the material world. Again, philosophy and I are not friends. If you want to discuss the prime mover, contingent entities or cosmological arguments, you’re barking up the wrong tree. Your evidence must be visible, readable, examinable, detectable or measurable in some obvious and indisputable way.
It’s objective. An example of something that would not be acceptable evidence: The emotions you experience exist in the real world (they’re chemical processes in your brain), and they’re material, but they’re entirely subjective: no one can experience the same thing as you. The same applies if you hear a voice from beyond the grave, if you see something that no one else sees or if you’re strongly convinced that something will change your life. Other people should be able to perceive your evidence and evaluate its characteristics in the same way as you, because they are obvious due to the nature of that evidence.
It’s reproducible. Given predictable conditions that can be recreated, the alleged evidence must again be available and can be examined in a way that allows determining that it is material and objective.
It can be examined by skeptics, today. Even a person who doesn’t believe in the conclusion you reached can examine your evidence and say “yes, indeed, what is claimed to be occurring is occurring in the terms described.”
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It is totally impossible to confuse this evidence with known natural phenomena. If what you interpret as proof of the supernatural is a known phenomenon or is completely acceptable with a simpler explanation, the latter is the one that should be preferred. As Occam’s Razor postulates,
When two or more explanations of a phenomenon are offered, the simplest complete explanation is preferable; that is, entities should not be multiplied without necessity.
Your evidence is acceptable to the international scientific consensus and allows reaching the conclusion you propose. That is, when the conditions under which the phenomenon you consider evidence occurs are repeated, it either coincides with the scientific paradigm, or challenges it in a plausible way and upon which a reasonable hypothesis can be built. However, the theoretical support for that acceptability must exist beforehand. If your evidence requires discarding an entire discipline of science that has been repeatedly proven and upon which entire notions that are considered valid and successfully predict other related phenomena rest, you’re going to have to do a lot of work to justify that your evidence is valid.
Your evidence is acceptable as evidence in a criminal court and allows reaching the conclusion you propose. And in particular I mention criminal law because evidentiary standards tend to be much more strict, requiring the absence of doubts in what is postulated. It’s not enough for it to be considered probable. [*]
Summary version
All of this is very good, but it’s a bit lengthy for a café discussion or to respond to a message in a public forum, especially if you’re writing on your mobile phone. If we condense this a bit, we get a phrase very similar to the one I’ve used in recent years in the discussions in which I’ve participated:
Perhaps something surprising will happen and someone will present us with evidence of this type. But just in case, don’t hold your breath. It may be quite a while before that happens.
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